The first awakening when I left the church was that my faith was in ministers and the system they represent. It was a shock, because I thought I knew God, His Son, and the Spirit, but if I did, why did I feel so exposed and vulnerable on leaving? Yes, a shock awakening, but also a good starting point to get to know the God I thought I knew.
Prior to leaving I had questions that the ministers couldn’t answer, surely a warning sign that one’s faith is in something that does not stand up to scrutiny. I remember saying to a minister once “The biggest question of our times for all of us is ‘are we saved or are we not saved?’” He had been talking about the constant distress his aged mother was in about not being good enough and missing out at the last. Curiously enough he agreed with me, even though he had framed the situation as the devil at work. I suspect he had no idea what I was talking about.
Assurance of salvation. I got it from the same place Luther did, the book of Galatians. One commentary begins:
The epistle to the Galatians is spiritual dynamite, and it is therefore almost impossible to handle it without explosions.
At every point it challenges our present-day shallow, easy acceptances and provokes our opposition.
In its refusal to allow salvation to depend on anything save the work done for helpless man by God almighty, and enjoyed by a faith which is itself a gift of God, it is a cry for Christian freedom. True, this condemns those who make salvation depend on forms and ceremonies as well as on faith in Christ (for the crime of the Judaizers was not that they substituted something for Christ’s work, but that they tried to add something to it). But it equally condemns those earnest Christians who subconsciously make salvation not only on faith in Christ, but also on the observance of negative moral laws.
From Cole, R.A. (1965) Galatians Tyndale Press, London
Don’t you love it! I might have felt exposed and vulnerable having left the only fellowship I had ever known, but I left with something many of them had never known, an understanding of grace. Possibly the best foundation for building a faith practice that stands up to scrutiny, one built without stuff coming from the minister.
A good friend asked me how my journey into post-church growth started. You are getting a better answer than he did, because I have thought about it a lot since. It started by discarding things I no longer believed in like the one true church, becoming nothings in order to be something, a god-like deity requiring obedience and sacrifice, and, perhaps most significant of all, much of what we heard presented as ‘the gospel’. One of the ‘explosive’ ideas in Galatians was the difference between Peter’s gospel (only for us, or people who become like us) and Paul’s (good news for all mankind). One a contract of works, the other a covenant of grace.
For many of us, our walk with God started with a ‘gospel’ prompting, however defined. I believe the next phase will too. Paul’s gospel will have an appeal for any moving away from the idea of ‘the perfect church’, but what, exactly is his message? I believe the answer is seen in what is known as ‘The Gospel in Chairs’ and I say ‘seen’ intentionally, for it is a demonstration you need to watch, not text to read. Here is one version I love: The Gospel in Chairs for it shows me what I used to believe about God, and what I embrace now. Clearly ‘good news’.
I referred to what I used to believe, and what I embrace now. I have lots of those. Let me tell you about a man who has lots of those too. A man who was asked by his wife to write down his ideas about God as a gift for their children. He did so, went to Office Depot and printed off fifteen copies. He gave some to friends. In 2007 it became a book (after being rejected by 30 odd Christian and secular publishers) and later a movie. It has sold over twenty million copies, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. He says it is a story for his kids about the God who showed up to heal his heart, not the one he grew up with. I feel certain there are many of us here for whom that statement will have resonance.
For all that, I don’t recommend the book, at least not in the early stages of this post-meeting journey. Instead I recommend listening to the author for a sense of who he is, and whether you could trust in what he writes about the god he used to know, and especially if in your mind he could be trusted to present a ‘showing up and healing’ god. That’s the God we are all yearning to know more fully. I suggest you watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-wn-l893c&t=3407s Give yourself time to absorb what he is saying, and permission to switch it off if you like. Remember I am talking about my journey into an intimacy with God that I had never known, what started my journey toward post-meeting growth. It would be presumptuous in the extreme for me to tell others how it is done, for their journey will be an individual one, led by the beautiful drawing power of a father’s love.
And besides, awakening is all about emerging from blissful sleep in our own time, not some brazen zealot screaming in our ear to get up and go somewhere. For those intrepid souls who have negotiated the post-church hazards into spiritual growth, I applaud you. For those about to embark, I applaud you also – you have so much to look forward to. God bless you all.
